


whoopty doo

by leoandsnake



Series: un jour je serai de retour [4]
Category: Disco Elysium (Video Game)
Genre: Blue Balls, M/M, Union Politics, exes bickering, harry kim jean cop teamup, harry very slowly recovering from amnesia via olfactory memories, kim and jean have unionized against harry, kim is holding this whole thing together with one eyebrow, more ex stuff, the moralintern, the regrets of an alcoholic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-18 16:14:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28995069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leoandsnake/pseuds/leoandsnake
Summary: “Detective,” Kim says patiently, “once again — you outrank me, and Officer Vicquemare is your partner.”“So?”“So why don’t you ask him to not call you a silly asshole?”Harry levels his gaze with Jean’s. “I order you to not call me a silly asshole,” he says, pointing at him.Jean, without breaking eye contact, gives him the middle finger with both hands.
Relationships: Harry Du Bois/Jean Vicquemare
Series: un jour je serai de retour [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2095374
Comments: 10
Kudos: 39





	whoopty doo

Jean doesn’t wake Harry up leaving for his run in the morning, but he does wake him up when he gets back. Harry is jarred from his usual restless sleep by the sound of the bedroom door being pulled shut. He blinks, groggy, trying to orient himself in the world.

He has a feeling that he slept better last night than he normally does, thanks to Jean’s presence beside him, but that he descended back into nightmares after Jean left for his run about an hour ago.

“What time is it?” he says to Jean, or means to. What he actually says is “Mrrghhh.”

“Good morning,” Jean says, as he thrusts open the balcony’s blackout curtains. Sanitizing, polar light pours into the room. Harry’s vision blurs and burns. “Lieutenant Kitsuragi is also up. You should join us.”

PERCEPTION: He’s wearing running clothes. He’s sweaty, and smells like it, but it’s not a bad smell.

COMPOSURE: He’s also working very hard to act normal around you.

Harry sits up, rubbing his eyes and resting his face in the span of his cupped hand. He’s been awake for thirty seconds, and he’s already exhausted.

“C’mere,” he says gruffly to Jean. He isn’t quite sure why he says this. It feels like something he might have said to him before he lost his memory, on a similar morning, when they were similarly situated — Harry in bed, Jean by the window.

Or maybe that was Dora? He sincerely can’t remember. Everything has smeared together.

Jean hesitates, but he comes over to the bed and takes a seat on the edge of it. “You can’t sleep up here again tonight,” he says.

Everyone is always telling Harry where he can and can’t sleep; it’s becoming galling. But Harry doesn’t really care about that right now, because he’s too fixated on the smell of Jean’s sweat, and the rabbit-speed pulse in Jean’s throat and wrists.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: On his way up here, Jean saw Kim at one of the cafeteria’s tables, having a cup of coffee. Jean, afraid that Kim could somehow sense that he had let Harry spoon him to sleep last night, blurted out, “Good morning, sir!” Kim leveled a steady gaze at him over the edge of his coffee cup and says, “Good morning, detective. No need for the ‘sir’.”

AUTHORITY: Why does Jean never call _you_ sir?

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: You’re partners, so that would be inappropriate and weird — unless it happened in bed, where it would be hot.

There’s tension crackling in the air between Jean and Harry, as if lightning is about to strike inside of this 10 x 10 bedroom. Jean avoids Harry’s gaze, which is pinned to his face; Harry feels like looking elsewhere would send him careening into outer space.

“C’mere,” he repeats.

“Come _where_?” Jean says, finally looking at him. “Come where, to do what?”

“Just c’mere.”

EMPATHY: The man is fighting himself extremely hard, up until the moment he loses.

Jean moves closer to him, kneeling astride him on the bed. He seems like he’s about to kiss Harry, but instead, he presses his cheek to his in a tenderly innocent gesture. Their beards scrape.

Harry just sits there with his hand on Jean’s ribs, feeling his lungs expand and contract. His skin is hot to the touch. Harry’s dick is hard, under the covers — morning wood. He noses at the nape of Jean’s neck, where his hair is damp with salty sweat.

“I need to shower,” Jean murmurs.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: What he _needs_ to do is to smother you with his armpit.

“Okay,” Harry says. “But you can kiss me first.”

“Why?”

RHETORIC: _Why?_ Why anything? Why stars, or pupils, or dancing?

“We kissed the other day,” Harry says.

“We shouldn’t have done that,” Jean says. “Especially not at work.”

“We’re not at work right now.”

“Technically, we are.”

“I think it’ll help my brain,” Harry says honestly.

“So you want to use me like a tube of magnesium?”

“I want to help you, too,” Harry says. “I just have nothing else to give you, besides this. All I have is my body, I destroyed everything else.”

For some reason, this makes Jean align his mouth with Harry’s and kiss him. This goes on for some time, in an open-mouthed, slobbering, shameless way. Jean kisses Harry like a grief-crazed widow would kiss a corpse after jumping into a grave after it; Harry kisses Jean like he’s a form of life support.

They ramp up the kissing until the seams start to blur between their bodies. Jean runs his hands up Harry’s back, lacing his fingers over his spine, then presses Harry against the wall behind them. He slides a thigh over Harry’s so he can straddle his lap, careful to avoid the bandages over his quadriceps. Then they grind and neck for a while, while Harry’s gut and heart churn with heat. Something about kissing Jean makes him aware of being meat; just a bag of muscle and fat, blood and sinew, animated by electricity.

It’s not a bad feeling. Jean breaks him down into his component parts. He is not a uniquely evil entity, unleashed on Elysium, doomed to live an eternity of grief. He was so afraid to find out what he was, and along rode Jean to disabuse him of all of his terrors. _No, you are not a peon of La Puta Madre. No, you and Dora were not the greatest, most tragic love story ever told. No, you are not a superstar, the Son of Lung, or the Firewalker. You were a gym teacher, and then a cop, and then an alcoholic, and then a worse cop._ Harry is nothing but a man — paunchy in the middle and ropey elsewhere, his dick hard — and someday death will free him from all things. As Jean clings to him and makes soft noises, this thought settles over his mind like a balm.

Harry can’t help but think of Lely’s head coming apart in this room, in this bed. It would be poetic if he were to be shot in the head right now by some crazed Union element. Lely was happy when he died, and Harry, too, would die happy, or as happy as he gets without chemical interference. Jean’s touch is comforting. It gives him momentary clarity, like a gust of sea air in his face.

Jean is rubbing Harry’s dick with his hand and with his thigh, caressing it with familiarity like it’s his own. Harry’s now so hard it’s becoming painful, which he announces in a guttural whisper.

“I don’t care,” Jean says with relish.

EMPATHY: He's hard, too.

Harry gropes Jean’s dick in his sweatpants. “You’re hard, too!”

“So what? I have self-control.”

DRAMA: That means “I’m going to jerk off while I shower.”

“It’s not _self-control_ to jerk off in the shower!” Harry exclaims.

Jean gets a puzzled look. “How did — whatever. Why don’t you worry less about what I’m doing and more about what we’re here for? You know, our job? As police officers?”

“You want me,” Harry retorts.

EMPATHY: Of course he wants you. He aches for you. He longs for your touch. He slept more soundly in your arms last night than he has in weeks; he thinks about being in your arms every time he looks at you. But your soul is a ball of razor blades.

Jean kisses him again, then breaks the kiss without pulling back. They remain like that a moment, their lips brushing, foreheads pressed together, breathing each other’s air.

“When I touch you, it helps me remember who I was,” Harry murmurs.

“I want you to stop being who you were,” Jean replies.

DRAMA: Alright, well, at least he’s honest.

HALF LIGHT: And you want to pound him into incoherency and gag on his dick. We all _want_ things, man.

Harry grabs Jean’s t-shirt and balls it in his fist in an effort to hang onto him. Jean sighs and tries to pull his fist apart, murmuring, “We have to go to work.”

“I have to remember more,” Harry says, tightening his grip. Jean is strong, but dismantling a fist is hard — each time you successfully pull a finger away, another takes its place. “Jean. Jean. The pale is swallowing my brain. I need you.”

“You don’t need me.”

“I do, you’re my partner.”

“I mean you don’t need to touch me or fuck me.”

“But I do, I need you to help me remember, or we won’t be able to fix this.”

“Fix what?”

INLAND EMPIRE: All of it, everything. Martinaise being sucked into the grinding jaws of capitalism and torn into shreds.

“I uncorked evil on this place,” Harry says. “I didn’t mean to. I keep just doing things, and I don’t know what they mean or why I’m doing them, and I’m going to destroy everything, because I’m human scum. I’m rotting from the inside.”

SHIVERS: No, it’s not _you_ that’s rotting from the inside, it’s Martinaise. It’s that metastatic malignancy in the center of the church. If you can’t save Martinaise from ruin, it’s not because you’re doomed, it’s because this entire town is. The entire world is.

“Harry,” Jean says, and his voice is gentle now — almost kind. Maybe because Harry has started to sound like a scared little boy. “You solved the lynching before you remembered anything. You took a bullet for these people. You’re a brilliant cop, and you’re one of us, and the day has just begun.”

EMPATHY: That’s an awful lot of optimism from a career pessimist.

“I thought you were a pessimist,” Harry says.

“I am, often,” Jean says. “Not always.”

EMPATHY: He wants so badly to believe in you, no matter how many reasons you give him not to.

Harry lets Jean’s shirt go, and Jean slips off the bed and goes downstairs. A moment later, Harry hears the shower start running.

“I don’t want to _gag_ on anyone’s _dick_ ,” he says aloud to himself, just to get that officially on the record.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: In the lobby of Precinct 41, Mack and Chester are stopping to kick the mud off their boots. They’ve just returned from what was supposed to be a routine questioning of a person of interest in a fatal armed robbery, but ended up being a foot chase through a field behind a dilapidated apartment building. The grass was still boggy from the rain of a few days ago.

“I think it’s stupid that Vic went to Martinaise,” Mack remarks to Chester. “We need him here in the city. And I don’t want to run his damn task force.”

This is unfair of him to say, as Judit is actually the one doing all the work of running the task force while Jean, Harry and Kim are away.

“I’m not surprised he went,” Chester says, flicking a hunk of mud off of his boot sole onto the mat below. “You saw how wound up he was when we got the call that Mullen got shot. Even before that, he took half a week off to orbit the guy.”

“Yeah, but all that was before they solved the murder. We got two clearances, let’s move the fuck on. Leave Martinaise to the 57th.”

“It’s not about the clearances for JV,” Chester says. “It’s deep, emotional, work husband shit. He’s whipped bad. He might bitch and moan about it, but at the end of the day, he follows that guy around like a dog hoping for scraps.”

“Would you go to Martinaise for me?” Mack asks him.

“Oh, _hell_ no.”

Mack nods, appearing unfazed.

/

Jean seems to have composed himself in the shower. When Harry comes downstairs, he’s already in uniform, and his face is unreadable.

COMPOSURE: He did end up jerking off in the shower. Now he’s experiencing post-nut clarity that’s making him wonder what the fuck he was doing earlier, but he’s mentally recommitted to both policework and not fucking you.

Harry, who had to strangle his boner into submission and is now suffering through a case of blue balls, resents this acutely. He would love to have post-nut clarity. All he has is pre-nut agony. He stumbles into the bathroom to take his morning piss, incensed by the harsh sunlight coming through the little window, then sloppily washes his hands and returns to Jean.

“ _Après vous,”_ Jean says, and gestures toward the hallway. Harry, now hopping around one-legged as he tries to get his left snakeskin shoe on, hops in the direction of the door. “You don’t need the coat, it’s warm today.”

Harry shrugs off his RCM Commander’s jacket, which he had been wearing all day yesterday for the purpose of looking like he has his shit together. Without it, this impression is diminished; he fetches his Lieutenant’s cap from the desk and puts that on instead.

Jean salutes him with a jokey flick of his fingers.

ENCYCLOPEDIA: This is a frequent gag of his.

They find Kim downstairs, standing stock-still by a pillar, staring into space like he’s lost in thought. When he sees them coming down the stairs, he shifts so that he’s back in his typical pose of parade rest.

“Lieutenant,” Jean says politely as they approach Kim.

EMPATHY: He is really feeling like a fucking idiot for making out with you, and he worries Kim can smell this weakness on him like a shark smelling blood.

“Good morning, detective,” Kim greets him.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: Kim can, in fact, tell that the energy between you two is _off_ somehow, but he doesn’t hold this against Jean. Actually, he’s feeling guilty for instructing you two to share a room, as this appears to have backfired.

“Kimothy,” Harry says, and gives Kim finger guns.

“Good morning, officer,” Kim says drily.

AUTHORITY: Do not call him ‘Kimothy’.

“Officer?” Sylvie calls from behind the bar, and all three of them look over. “Sorry, just, um — just Officer Vicquemare. Your station called, they asked you to please radio in as soon as you can.”

“Thank you,” Jean says. “Lieutenants, would you like to join me?”

Kim nods, then holds up a finger. “I have a possible lead,” he says. “I can tell you more after we call in. But before we step outside…”

He inclines his head to the left a little, and Harry follows the trajectory of this gesture across the cafeteria to the seating by the windows. There stands the Smoker on the Balcony, who is smoking while reading a newspaper.

“Martin Martinaise!” Harry blurts out.

“Yes, your dear friend Martin Martinaise,” Kim says.

EMPATHY: He’s having a very hard time not laughing.

Jean leans in toward Kim and says, “He knows that’s a joke name, right?”

“I keep telling him, but I’m not sure it’s sticking,” Kim says in an undertone.

The smoker notices Harry staring at him and smiles, lifting his cigarette in greeting. “Gendarmerie! Back so soon? Can’t get enough of us?” He gives Harry an easy, light smile.

Harry’s eyes rove over his body. The blue balls are even more acute, now. He’s going to become the first man to ever drop dead of blue balls.

Kim clears his throat and kicks Harry in the foot.

LOGIC: You haven’t even said anything to Martin Martinaise yet, you’ve just been staring at him lustfully for about fifteen seconds. This is not good police work.

ENCYCLOPEDIA: By the way, the word gendarmerie comes from gens d'armes. Men at arms. In case you were wondering.

“Hfffhh,” Harry says. “Yes. Back we are.”

Martin smokes and exhales the smoke. Harry stares at his throat as he does. “Your colleague is trying to arrange another visit to my apartment,” he says, indicating Kim.

“Yes,” Harry says stupidly. “We would like to… come over. Can we come over?”

“As police, or as friends?” Martin says, smiling more.

“We’re all friends,” Harry says, rooted to the spot by unknown forces.

Someone starts pushing him toward the door; he thinks it’s Kim, but when he ends up outside in the fresh spring air, he realizes Kim is walking at his left and it’s Jean who’s behind him.

When they reach the MC, Kim leans against the driver's side door in a very cool way, then begins: “So, as you’ve probably put together… what I’m thinking is, it would be advantageous to have another conversation with Charles Villedrouin, if we can.”

Half of Harry’s brain is still on the floor of the cafeteria where he left it, but he nods. Jean goes over to the passenger side door of the MC and pulls it open, then reaches for the radio. “Did you have your primeline rewired to the 41st?” he says to Kim.

“I did,” Kim says.

EMPATHY: He’s still quite excited to have joined the 41st, despite all this chaos.

Jean picks the radio up.

“This is Precinct 41, how can I help you?” Jules says.

“Jules?” Jean says into the microphone. “This is Vicquemare. You’ve been trying to raise me?”

“I have, sir,” Jules says. “Mr. Heidelstam was requesting you, but he’s since gone out for coffee, and he didn’t leave a message with me.”

Jean shakes his head at this. “Okay. Who else?”

“Captain Pryce also wants to speak with you. I can patch him through directly.”

Jean’s back stiffens, and he shoots a helpless look at Kim and Harry. “Go ahead,” he says.

“10-4, sir. Over.” Jules cuts out, and is replaced by the soft hum of static.

“I’m sure he just wants to check in,” Kim says, although he sounds unsure.

“I doubt it,” Jean mutters.

There’s another click, and then Pryce gruffly says, “Vicquemare,” before starting to cough.

“Sir,” Jean says, waiting out the cough.

“You alone, or are the lieutenants with you?”

Jean opens his mouth to answer, but Kim reaches forward and puts a hand on his bicep, then brings one gloved finger to his lips.

“I’m alone,” Jean says smoothly, giving Kim a curious look.

Kim mouths ‘thank you’ to him.

“Okay, good.” Pryce starts coughing again.

The three of them stand there in silence, waiting for him to stop. Harry’s eyes wander across the roundabout, roving over the traffic jam, scoping for something... For what?

LOGIC: Anything weird or out of place. You’re a cop.

A young couple holding hands is walking up the road, passing the pawn shop on their way toward the bookstore. They laugh and hold onto each other tighter as they make their way across the bombed-out crater where Gaston and René had played pétanque. The woman is blonde and pretty, and the man is young and handsome, happy-looking.

VOLITION: Look away from this awful sight. Now.

Harry tears his eyes from the happy people. Pryce finishes coughing and says, “Where are we at, Vicquemare? How close are we to making an arrest? Have you breached the harbor?”

“We’re not quite at that point,” Jean says.

“Why the hell not?”

Jean grips the microphone tighter, looking aggrieved.

EMPATHY: He’s tired of running interference between you and Pryce, even when it isn’t your fault, like right now.

“This is a delicate situation, sir,” Jean says. “We need to maneuver carefully. We don’t want to rush the harbor and startle the Claires into hiding.”

“So you’d rather wait around for them to make an escape?” Pryce says.

“No,” Jean says. “I mean, we aren’t sure where Edgar is, and I don’t believe Evrart is a flight risk.” Harry motions to indicate corpulence, and Jean glances at him before adding, “He’s _very_ large. But he’s able to move freely around the harbor, which is massive. We don’t have time or the authority to search a thousand containers.”

“Regardless, at the very least, I want that 2-meter lunatic on the gates arrested. That Gerstler kid is probably going to be a cretin for life.”

Jean closes his eyes and rests the microphone against his forehead for a moment. “We’re working on it, sir. But we would prefer to be _allowed_ into the harbor by the Union, instead of breaching it. That way the odds are much higher that we can actually make contact with Evrart once inside, and maybe even convince him to give up Edgar and, ah… Measurehead. Otherwise, I’m afraid we’ll encounter the same problem that Gerstler and Boyer did.”

“Alright,” Pryce says, clearly fed up with this conversation. “I assume the three of you know what you’re doing, but speed it the fuck up, okay? I want these guys in bracelets, and I want the three of you back here in Jamrock, where you’re needed.”

“Understood.”

“How’s Kitsuragi doing?”

Kim glances away, then, like it’s impolite to look at Jean while he answers this question.

“He’s doing great,” Jean says. “He’s highly competent, and an asset to the task force.”

DRAMA: Oh, _ass-kisser_.

SUGGESTION: You’re just mad because that’s the kind of stuff he used to say about you before you became a raving lunatic.

“Good,” Pryce says. “That’s what I’d been told by the 57th.”

Harry glances over at Kim. He’s still looking away, but pink is rising in his cheeks, and he’s fighting a smile.

“How’s Harry?” Pryce says.

Jean turns to Harry and looks him up and down. He’s always doing that — looking Harry up and down like he expects him to be wearing a sandwich board that says, NO JEAN, I’M NOT DRUNK, or YES JEAN, I AM DRUNK. “He’s doing fine,” he says into the radio.

AUTHORITY: Kim gets ‘great’ and you get ‘fine’? First you fumble your shot with Martin Martinaise, now this? Get your shit together.

“Does he remember anything?” Pryce says, then laughs so hard he starts coughing.

“He remembers some things,” Jean says guardedly.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: ‘He remembers sucking my dick in your office, Captain!’

“Oh, good,” Pryce says, laughing even harder. “I’ve never heard of this shit before in my life… guy losing his entire memory and still clearing cases. Only DB, God bless him. Is he drunk?”

“He’s been sober since we’ve been here,” Jean says, suddenly speaking quietly, like he’s embarrassed to be giving a report on Harry’s sobriety in front of Kim and Harry.

EMPATHY: No, it’s not that — he’s embarrassed by how much of a habit this is. Pryce has asked him ‘Is he drunk?’ many, many times. Jean has covered for you with Pryce many, many times.

“Good to hear,” Pryce says. “Alright, keep at it. Keep us posted.”

“Sir,” Jean says in agreement. He hangs up the radio and says, “Shit.”

“So we’re being pressured by the Coalition to hurry up and arrest the Claires,” Kim says, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “Indirectly, of course.”

Jean nods.

“Did you see your guy this morning?” Harry says to Kim. “The spook next door?”

Kim shakes his head. “Either he hasn’t left his room yet, or he’s an extremely early riser. I woke at five to try to catch him. I waited at the balcony for hours… nothing.”

“You woke up at five?” Harry says, amazed.

“That’s not that early,” Jean says.

Kim nods, then starts to say something.

“Gaston!” Harry exclaims, interrupting him.

Jean and Kim both look at him.

“He does things for the Claires,” Harry appeals to Kim. “Remember?”

“I remember,” Kim says cautiously. “I also remember that he’s not even a full Union member.”

“Even better.”

“But he doesn’t know anything,” Kim says. “I agree we need the perspective of a relative outsider, but not someone who’s so far outside that he can’t see inside.”

“He’s a fan,” Harry says. “A Union fan. He loves the Claires, he’d know where the weak spots are, he’d have to. It’s a place to start, anyway.”

Kim nods. “Okay. Let’s find out where he lives, then.”

EMPATHY: Kim trusts your instincts, even when he has no idea where you’re going with something.

Jean picks the radio back up. “Name?”

Kim checks his notebook. “Gaston Martin,” he says, to the relief of Harry, who writes nothing down and could not for the life of him remember Gaston’s last name.

ENCYCLOPEDIA: Well, excuse the hell out of _me_.

“Hi Jules,” Jean says, as soon as they hear the click of the operator picking up. “It’s Jean again. Can you run an address?”

“Of course,” Jules’ voice says through the static.

“Thank you. Gaston Martin, here in Martinaise.”

“One moment,” Jules says.

Jules then leaves them hanging for much longer than one moment. Harry, prodded by the ache in his leg, goes over and sits on the bench beside the containerized tree behind Kim’s MC, which is swaying merrily in the breeze. He takes a deep breath of the air; it smells sweet and hopeful. Spring is so nice. Winter is a tomb, in comparison.

“Why is winter so hard for me?” Harry says to Jean, who’s drumming his fingers on the door of Kim’s MC while he waits for Jules to return.

Kim looks off into the distance, the sun glinting off his glasses.

Jean shrugs. “Winter is hard for everyone.”

“But me specifically.”

Jean squints at him. “You don’t like winter,” he says.

“I feel like there’s a why to everything about me,” Harry says, “and you keep telling me there isn’t.”

“There are _whys_ , you just don’t like what they are.”

“‘You don’t like winter’ isn’t an answer, it’s another question. Why don’t I like winter?”

Jean throws his hands up in the air. “Ah… it’s partly that you like being outside, I imagine. You’re an active person. You like to run around. The days get shorter, it limits your running around, it makes you go inside your house sooner, because Jamrock isn’t safe at night. So in the winter, you start drinking earlier, and more heavily. You’re also sad because you’re cold and it’s dark. Is that enough?”

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: It is nice to run around outdoors. One of the simple pleasures in life.

“Yes,” Harry says truthfully.

“Winter is over,” Jean points out.

“There’ll be another winter.”

“There always is.”

Kim looks over at them. “I don’t like winter either,” he offers.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: That’s not entirely true. There are some things he likes about winter. He likes getting in his car after a long day at work and turning up the heat full blast, watching fat snowflakes waft down from the sky and melt instantly against the warm windscreen, making the neon lights of the city refract and glow. They glow even more if he takes his glasses off, tired from a long day of seeing horrible things, and just sits there, half-blind and content.

“Do you like autumn?” Harry asks him.

Kim nods. “I do like autumn.” He inhales, then says, “What I was going to say earlier, before we got off track, was that I think we may be able to manipulate Charles Villedrouin to our advantage.”

“Refresh me on who this is?” Jean asks. “I’ve read all your case notes, but there are a lot of names to keep straight.”

Kim nods. “He’s the Coalition official who is… khm… involved with the young man we just spoke to in the Whirling.”

Jean’s gaze travels skyward as he seems to begin working something out in his head. When he’s done with that, he gives Kim a significant look. Kim raises one eyebrow in response, then nods. Jean starts laughing.

“What?” Harry demands. He doesn’t like them silently communicating with each other in front of him.

“Nothing,” Jean says, sobering and shooting him a cross look, like he’s interrupting their fun. The radio crackles again, and he picks it up off of the seat of the MC. “Jules?”

“Hello, Officer Vicquemare. I have an address for Gaston Martin, whenever you’re ready.”

“Excellent, go ahead,” Jean says.

“He lives at Saint-Augustin 290, apartment number 107.”

Kim writes this down.

“Thank you, Jules,” Jean says.

“Of course. Anything else?”

“No, that’s it. Unless Trant is back?”

“He is not,” Jules says.

Jean looks mildly annoyed by this. “Okay. Goodbye.”

Harry wonders idly what Jean’s deal with Trant is.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: Jean likes Trant a lot, actually. It’s just that Jean is a somewhat spiky person, and a natural-born cop with little patience for hypotheticals and philosophy, which Trant provides in spades. However, both Judit and Trant have been very loyal and good to Jean during your descent into hell. The three of them hang out outside of work on a regular basis.

“10-4,” Jules says. “Over.”

Jean clicks the radio back into place, then reaches in his pocket and pulls out his pack of cigarettes.

Kim takes their map of Martinaise from his pocket and unfolds it, his eyes roving over it. “That’s right across the roundabout, on the other side of the traffic jam,” he says, pointing. “We can see the building from here.”

“Then let’s go,” Jean says, cupping his hands to light his cigarette.

The smell of a lit Guelph still lights up the pleasure center of Harry’s brain; he closes his eyes for a moment and breathes in the air that is wafting downwind from Jean. Chaotic images swirl in his mind’s eye: standing with Jean in the mezzanine of Precinct 41, arguing with him about the motive in the assassination of a minor politician while Jean chain-smoked in his face; responding to the scene of a gangland homicide with Jean and taking a moment to make out with him in bathroom of the victim’s apartment, pushing him up against the sink and squeezing his ass; drinking in a packed bar with Mack, Jean and Chester, trying desperately to get the bartender’s attention while Jean sat smoking on the stool beside him.

Harry opens his eyes, interrupting this flood of memories, then looks at Kim and waits to receive a nod from him before taking the lead.

As they walk, Harry can hear Kim and Jean talking in quiet voices about the Moralintern behind him. Whispering thickens their Revacholian accents. Harry only understands about half of what they’re saying; despite his meticulous information-gathering over the past two weeks, there are massive gaps in his understanding of the world.

This doesn’t really faze him, though. As he walks, he does so with a sense of renewed purpose.

/

This sense of renewed purpose only lasts until they enter the lobby of Gaston’s apartment building, which is shabby, but not quite as dilapidated as the Capeside Apartments. A little more cheerful, perhaps. The floor is a blistered but pretty tile, instead of dusty wood, and they can hear voices and radio chatter coming from the individual apartments.

Once inside, Kim stops them and says, “We should strategize about how we approach this.”

Jean glances at Harry and says to Kim, “This is more delicate work than the kind of community policing we were doing yesterday… we’re now approaching someone with a direct connection to the Claires. How has Harry been during direct questioning? Does he veer off and start babbling about unrelated things?”

LOGIC: Hello, you’re right here! Rude.

Kim hesitates. “Sometimes, but it often turns out to be ultimately advantageous for us. I assumed it was an intentional tactic… keep the person guessing, leave no stone unturned. The Jamrock Shuffle method of questioning, maybe.”

Jean looks dubious, but clearly doesn’t want to contradict Kim.

“Maybe if you gave me the same benefit of the doubt that Kim does, my memory would be recovering faster,” Harry says to Jean.

Jean rounds on him, suddenly furious. “Kim doesn’t _know_ you like I do,” he spits. “Kim didn’t watch you almost blow Chad Tillbrook’s brains out behind the station, because you bet him 30 reál that you could shoot a tequila bottle off his head!”

Harry blinks at him. “Did I win the bet?”

“No, you dumb fuck! You were piss drunk! Thank God you aimed wide and shot the wall!”

“Well, why didn’t anyone stop me?”

“I was on the other side of the parking lot!” Jean says. He’s apoplectic, now, and Kim has reached out to grip his arm, seemingly in an attempt to quiet him. “I can’t babysit you twenty-four hours a day! _I_ was the one who had to apologize to everyone for you the next day, though, because I’m your fucking _wife_ , or something —”

“Nobody made you do that,” Harry says, feeling cowed.

Jean throws his hands in the air. “I’m your partner! What am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to stop you, or enable you? Which one, Harry? Why can’t _you_ just act like a fucking human being? Why do you have to be a lunatic? You know, we all lost an entire weekend going into the station to get sensitivity training about how to talk to our coworkers because of you! I already _know_ how to talk to my coworkers!”

“ _I’m_ your coworker, and you’re calling me a lunatic,” Harry points out.

“You _are_ a lunatic!” Jean screams at him.

“Gentlemen!” Kim interrupts, with a gruff, booming finality. “This is not the venue for this conversation! Thank you!”

Jean takes a deep breath, and then another; the redness recedes from his scarred cheeks. “Maybe I should go back to Jamrock,” he says.

“I would prefer you didn’t,” Kim says simply.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: He means that. He likes having Jean around to talk to, because Jean’s brain is intact, unlike yours, and unlike you, he’s a direct line to the goings-on and politics of Precinct 41, which Kim is still unfamiliar with. In addition, he just generally likes Jean, and feels bad for him.

Jean looks at Kim for a moment, still catching his breath. He heaves a hiccupy sigh and says, “Fine.”

Kim nods. “Gaston lives on the first floor,” he says drily, “so we can assume he’s probably heard us shouting. He’s spoken to Harry and I before, he would recognize our voices.”

“So we go in guns blazing, then,” Harry says. “Intimidation tactics. We’re all insane loose cannons.”

“No, you silly asshole, that’s not our strategy,” Jean says.

Harry raises his hand. “Kim? Please tell him not to call me a silly asshole?”

“Detective,” Kim says patiently, “once again — you outrank me, and Officer Vicquemare is _your_ partner.”

“So?”

“So why don’t _you_ ask him to not call you a silly asshole?”

Harry levels his gaze with Jean’s. “I order you to not call me a silly asshole,” he says, pointing at him.

Jean, without breaking eye contact, gives him the middle finger with both hands.

AUTHORITY: So much for that.

“This morning, you said I’m a brilliant cop, and one of you,” Harry says, hurt.

RHETORIC: And he said it in a tender way after kissing you, too. All of this back-and-forth is exhausting.

“You _are_ a brilliant cop, and one of us,” Jean says. “You’re also a drunken psycho. They’re not mutually exclusive.”

“I would appreciate a little recognition of the fact that I’m not currently drunk or psychotic.”

“The bar is underneath the floor,” Jean says, with disbelief in his voice. “The bar is buried underground. Fine, I do actually very much appreciate the fact that you’re trying to stay sober, especially since you’ve pretty obviously been suffering through delirium tremens as a result —”

Kim lets out a soft “ _oh_ ”, and nods. “The talking tie,” he says, and gestures like, _Duh_.

“Hey,” Harry says sharply. “My tie did talk to me. Otherwise how would I have known how to turn it into a petrol bomb?”

“Detective, you set 99% pure alcohol on fire, then threw it at a human being,” Kim says. “I think even Cuno could grasp the mechanisms at work there, let alone a veteran police detective.”

“That in addition to the fact that, historically, your tie only ‘talks’ to you when you’ve gone a few days without drinking,” Jean adds. “And if you don’t have DTs, why are you so sweaty? Why are you constantly trembling? Why is your heartbeat so irregular?”

INLAND EMPIRE: Don’t listen to them. They’re full of shit. They don’t get it.

“You don’t get it,” Harry says, flapping his hand dismissively.

“Okay, fine,” Jean agrees. “I don’t get it. Can we go interview Gaston now?”

“Yes, good idea, now that we’ve loudly debased ourselves in the foyer for everyone to hear,” Kim quips. “Maybe he’s not home.”

Harry nods at this and charges ahead, the heels of his snakeskin shoes clicking on the tile. He walks up to 107 and pounds on the door, maybe a little too hard.

He can hear a radio inside, and then the sound of it growing quieter. “Yes?” Gaston calls.

“Gaston Martin?” Harry says. “It’s Lieutenant Du Bois, with the RCM. We spoke the other day. I’d like to talk again, if we can.”

There’s some shuffling from inside, and then the door opens a crack, chained. Gaston peers up at him. “Officer,” he says, sounding surprised. “I thought the RCM made an arrest in the lynching?”

“We did,” Harry says. “We’re just tying up some loose ends. Can we come in?”

“If you insist,” Gaston says. He shuts the door, and Harry hears the chain come undone. The door opens, revealing all of Gaston, and a small, somewhat messy apartment. It’s full of leaflets, stacks of papers, and leaflet-making equipment — the apartment of a widower with a political agenda. “Come in. Oh, you brought backup.”

Harry enters the apartment, followed by Kim, who reintroduces himself to Gaston, and Jean, who introduces himself.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: He does actually recognize Gaston — he and Judit watched from the Whirling while you and Kim talked to Gaston and René. Jean saw you throw their boule in the ocean, and found this extremely funny. It’s the kind of thing he would have good-naturedly teased you about for months afterward, back in the days before you descended into madness and then lost your memory.

Harry is hit by a bitter sting of regret, and looks over at Jean, who’s calmed down from his earlier fit of anger and is now poking around Gaston’s apartment with cop-standard curiosity. He feels bad about depriving Jean of laughter and good times, of the security of a fraternal, battle-forged bond.

EMPATHY: It’s a testament to how strong that bond once was that Jean is still here.

And why is Kim still here?

EMPATHY: Because you’re a good detective, and you’ve shown him kindness and loyalty, and challenged him in ways he didn’t expect. Plus, this is turning out to be a hell of a case. It’s certainly more interesting than pinball.

Gaston, standing in the center of his apartment, looks nervous. “Is there a problem, officers?”

“No,” Harry says, gesturing toward the armchair that faces his couch. “Sit, please.”

Gaston sits and looks up at them, leaning his elbows on his thighs.

Harry takes a seat on the couch. “I’m sorry about your friend,” he says compulsively.

Gaston gestures as if to say ‘ _forget about it_.’ Jean, who’s standing by Gaston’s window and peering out of the curtains as if to ascertain what kind of view Gaston normally has of Martinaise, glances over at Harry, then looks away again.

Kim is standing off to Harry’s left, mostly in his peripheral vision, flipping through his notebook.

“You said you loved him,” Harry says.

Gaston shakes his head, but his eyes fill with tears. “He was a rotten bastard... Yes, I loved him.”

Harry’s gaze is pulled to Jean, who is clearly listening intently while pretending to look out the window. Jean squirms under his gaze for a moment, then returns it, giving Harry a significant look.

Despite the shattered state of Harry’s brain, muscle memory lets him know what that look means — it means _good work, keep going, open him up emotionally before we get to the tougher stuff._

Harry didn’t even realize that’s what he was doing. He just mentioned René because it felt like the kind thing to do.

Gaston’s eyes travel to the insignia on Harry’s arm, like he had forgotten Harry was a cop and is now remembering.

“You worked together in the harbor,” Harry says. “He was a night watchman… and you operate in an unofficial capacity… but you do operate.”

“You could say that,” Gaston says, looking uneasy.

“Why did René take a job in the harbor, if he opposed everything the Union stands for?”

“He needed something to do,” Gaston says. “We take care of each other, in Martinaise… No one else does. I don’t think you would understand.”

“I do understand,” Harry says. “Cops take care of each other, too.”

Kim walks over to Harry and takes a seat beside him on the couch. Gaston looks between them, his brow knitting.

“Why are you asking me about René?” he says. “He wasn’t involved in the lynching. We didn’t know anything.”

Harry is thrown for a loop — he can’t exactly come out and say _I’m manipulating you_ — but Kim, cool as a cucumber, says, “The man we arrested, Iosef Dros? You’ve read about him in the paper, I’m sure… you know who and what he was.”

Gaston nods.

“Well, he spoke at length about René when we confronted him. He claimed to have surveilled you and René many, many times with his rifle, in the same sniper’s nest from which he shot Lely Kortenaer.”

ENCYCLOPEDIA: How the fuck does Kim remember all these names?

LOGIC: Because he writes them down, he doesn’t just commit them to the waterlogged ruins of his amnesiac brain and then move on.

Gaston looks horrified. “He did?”

“Yes,” Kim says. “He wanted to shoot René… or he claimed to want to. His reluctance to do so indicates otherwise. My theory is that he saw René as one of his few remaining contemporaries, and felt a kinship with him, despite their opposing ideologies.”

“Did he want to shoot _me_?”

“He didn’t mention you,” Harry says.

Gaston looks as if he doesn’t know whether to be offended or relieved by this.

“Obviously the Claires wield a lot of influence in Martinaise,” Kim says, then hesitates before continuing. “What’s the popular sentiment about them?”

“Very supportive,” Gaston says immediately.

“Is it really?” Harry says. “Seems more like blind fear.”

Gaston looks at him like he’s a crazy person.

EMPATHY: He thinks you’re a crazy person.

Jean pulls the curtains shut tightly and takes a large step away from the window, then comes over to the couch and sits on the other side of Harry.

“Is there unrest in the Union?” Jean says. “Elements unfavorable to the Claires?”

Gaston’s eyes widen further.

“We’re wondering,” Jean says, “because Dros expressed significant animosity toward the Claires, and it seems unlikely that he had no contact with anyone else in Martinaise during his forty years on that island. We have reason to believe he might have had ideological allies who are still around, and who might want to retaliate against the Union on his behalf.”

DRAMA: Smart. Very smart half-truths from Jean.

EMPATHY: Kim is impressed. He was thinking along similar lines, but Jean reacted first.

“Anyone in the Union could be in danger,” Harry says. “Especially since the strike is now, in effect, over. Martinaise is very vulnerable to hostile action at the moment.”

“Which is why the RCM has stepped up its presence,” Jean says.

Something about him and Jean lying in tandem like this feels very familiar. Is that all cops do, at the end of the day? Get a guy in a room and lie to him?

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: No, you also walk around and kick down doors.

Now Gaston looks torn between relief and concern. “Um,” he says. “I probably wouldn’t be the best person to ask about hostile elements… I think Titus would. Or Evrart himself.”

“We can’t get into the harbor,” Harry says. “They’re refusing the RCM.”

Gaston nods. “How did you get in before?”

“Uh,” Harry says. “Trespassing?”

“Well,” Gaston says, looking nonplussed, “maybe you should, ah, give that method another try. Because I think the Claires would probably like to hear about this.”

Kim, Jean and Harry simultaneously shift in their seats. They all know what that means: Gaston is going to run to Evrart and tell him everything he just heard, and then Evrart is going to allow the RCM to enter the harbor and come talk to him unmolested, because this is a very different game than what he thought was happening.

“We’ll take that under advisement,” Kim says in a low tone, flipping his notebook shut. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Martin.”

All four of them stand, and each detective shakes hands with Gaston on their way out, stepping over scattered socialist leaflets on the floor.

None of them speak until they’re well out of the apartment building and have made it halfway through the roundabout, under the shadow of the Filippe III statue, where the idling lorry engines drown out all other sounds like a hurricane of white noise. There they stop and turn to each other.

“Match lit,” Kim says.

“I think the two of you lit the match a week ago,” Jean says, and he lights a cigarette as if to complete the metaphor. He looks tense. “I hope I was convincing.”

“I thought you were brilliant,” Kim says kindly.

Jean smiles at him. “No, it was brilliant of you to tell him that Dros watched him with his rifle. You scared the shit out of him, he got very pliable after that.”

Kim smiles back.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: Gross, your partners are cop-flirting with each other.

“Do we think Evrart will know we’re full of shit?” Harry blurts out, wanting to be the center of attention again. “That he’ll expect Dros told us about the Holly murder, and we’re bullshitting around pretending we don’t know so we can get at him?”

“I think he can’t possibly be sure,” Kim says. “And he’ll want to meet with us to feel us out.” He pauses. “He must know you fucked him on those signatures, by now.”

“Is that bad?” Harry says.

“Well, it undercuts the idea that you’re overly concerned about him.”

“I’m concerned about the Union,” Harry says. “That’s how we play it. I’m a man of the people.”

Kim smiles at him. “Every worker for himself, right?”

“Exactly.”

Jean is still smoking, and looking around in a paranoid way.

EMPATHY: He really doesn’t like Martinaise, or the idea of being shot in the head.

“I think we talk to Titus next,” Harry says. “It makes sense for our cover, plus, if Gaston tells Evrart everything we just told him, Evrart’s going to expect us to talk to Titus.”

Kim nods. “And he likes us.”

“If we warned Evrart that we’re going to arrest him and Edgar, would he voluntarily step down and appoint a successor in order to protect the Union itself?” Jean says, ashing his cigarette. “It’s a huge gamble, but it could pay off.”

“So go into his office and say, ‘Hey, we’re gonna arrest you in three days, get your affairs in order?’” Harry says. “Just create the biggest flight risk of my entire career, Jean?”

He stops after he says this, because it doesn’t feel like it came from him — it feels like it came from his past self. More and more, the things he says to Jean sound to him not like original thoughts from his new brain, but echoes from his old one. Like his dream about Dora, he’s regurgitating old phrases, re-litigating his relationship with Jean, trying old keys in a new lock.

Jean doesn’t seem to notice his consternation over what he just said. “That’s why it’s a huge gamble,” he says. “Either he takes us seriously and does what we want, or he has his goons slit our throats on our way out of the harbor.”

“So maybe we get word to the goons, first,” Kim says.

Jean finishes his cigarette, drops it, and stomps on it. He lights another one, then takes a drag and starts coughing.

“You’re smoking a lot,” Harry says to him.

“You’re very observant,” Jean shoots back.

“As far as Charles Villedrouin goes,” Kim says, “we can’t put off meeting with him, now. The Claires know everything that goes on in Martinaise, but so does the Moralintern. We need to feed them some information, and make them think we’re close to making an arrest, so they don’t step in.”

“You’re very concerned with the Moralintern,” Harry says.

Kim and Jean exchange another look that’s clearly about him.

“Harry,” Jean says, folding his arms, “what do you think the relationship between the RCM and the Moralintern is?”

“I feel like I’m not going to like whatever you’re about to say,” Harry says.

Jean gestures broadly around himself. “We’re renting Martinaise,” he says. “We’re renting Revachol, actually. The only reason we police here is because the MI allows us to, because it would be a pain in their ass and a resource sink for them to take custody of it from us. However, they can, and they would.”

“He’s right,” Kim says.

“Why do you think there’s an MI agent in the room next door to Lieutenant Kitsuragi?” Jean says. “They’re watching us.”

“We need to tacitly reassure them that we have this situation under control,” Kim says. “We don’t want them interfering with the Union, we don’t want the Union revolting against that interference.”

Jean smokes and nods.

“Why don’t we just grab the Moralintern agent next time we see him and say, hey, motherfucker, everything’s fine, go home?” Harry says.

Jean chokes on a laugh. “ _Hey motherfucker_ ,” he repeats.

“We don’t know for absolutely sure that he’s with the Moralintern,” Kim says. “He could be another merc hired by Wild Pines… they’ve retreated, but I doubt they’re just going to permanently turn Martinaise over to the Union. And,” he says, gesturing to the traffic jam around them, “the harbour gates are still closed. He could also just be some guy with a square haircut and supportive shoes. We don’t want to go around running our mouths.”

“Good luck with that,” Jean says. “Running around and running his mouth are Harry’s specialties.”

Kim smiles in acknowledgement.

“I think it’s not fair that you know way more about me than I do, and you use it for evil,” Harry says to Jean.

Jean winks and blows a mouthful of smoke at him.

“Let’s go back to the Whirling,” Kim says. “I know we can’t be overheard here, but I still feel watched.” He glances around, surveying the lorries. Only one driver is out — Siileng. “Harry’s friend Martin Martinaise told me he’d step out onto his balcony to let us know that Charles has arrived and is ready to meet with us. We have some time to kill.”

Harry nods. “I have a Dick Mullen book I can read,” he says.

Jean’s gaze snaps to his face, and he starts laughing. “You bought a Dick Mullen book?”

“Yes, I know, it’s very funny, you all call me Dick Mullen, I bought a Dick Mullen book, ha-ha-ha.”

To Harry’s surprise, Jean responds by handing him his half-smoked cigarette. Harry takes a grateful drag immediately.

“Which Dick Mullen book?” Jean says.

“Dick Mullen and the Mistaken Identity,” Harry says. “I actually lost the last few pages. Do you know what happens?”

“I have never in my life read a Dick Mullen book,” Jean says.

“Detectives,” Kim says, and motions for them to follow him, then starts leading them back to the Whirling.

Harry bumps shoulders with Jean again as they walk; he can’t tell if it’s an accident or habit. “What do you read?” he says out of curiosity, and takes another drag off the cigarette.

“Newspapers,” Jean says.

“What do I read?”

“Newspapers. Or you used to, anyway.” Jean’s quiet for a moment. “Reading is hard when you’re drunk.”

Harry’s quiet; a memory is fluttering against the edges of his mind.

REACTION SPEED: Grab it.

SHIVERS: You and Jean used to read the newspaper in bed together on Sunday mornings. This was usually after you had crawled to his apartment early that morning in a drunken stupor, coming off of a Friday-Saturday bender. Jean would get up, put you to bed, and go out around 9 to get coffee, breakfast, and two copies of the newspaper. He’d bring them back and wake you up, then nurse you through your hangover.

EMPATHY: This is the kind of thing he’s talking about when he says he enabled you.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: But someone had to do what he did, or you’d be dead. You’d have choked to death on your own vomit in the bathroom of your apartment, or gotten beaten to death by a mugger in an alley.

EMPATHY: And that’s why it galls him so much when you resent him, or try to throw your life or career away. He set himself on fire to keep you alive, and you told him to fuck off and almost killed yourself.

“I’m sorry,” Harry says. It comes out of him unbidden, like vomit.

Jean’s quiet. “For your inability to read?”

“No. I’m just sorry.”

“Okay,” Jean says.

They keep walking, leaving the roundabout and the traffic jam, following the bright orange slash of Kim’s jacket even as the noon sun comes out from behind a cloud to blind them.

“Give me my cigarette back,” Jean says, twiddling his fingers in front of Harry’s face. “You’re letting it ash.”

Harry gives it to him, and he brings it to his lips.


End file.
